Your kids, or maybe even you, are on edge waiting for the next-generation consoles rumoured to be out this year. The next-gen Xbox (720 perhaps?), in order just to keep up with the 360 specs, would need to be able to support HD graphics and a growing online base with "OTT" (Over-The-Top) apps including Quickflix, Foxtel and others. The PS4: same deal. And The Nintendo Wii U sports HD graphics and a tablet controller.

All these applications and devices are becoming cloud-based: yes, even gaming is headed that way with the old DVD soon to be made obsolete and games producers seeing the value in cloud gaming and downloadable content (DLC).

In addition, our televisions have quadrupled in total resolution from the 1080p high-definition television that you may have only recently upgraded to with the launch of 4K televisions across the globe. Beyond that, the specs are ready for the 8K Ultra-HD renditions, which is twice that resolution again and which is waiting in the wings to make the just-released 4K little brother obsolete.

Not only that, the rumours of the Apple "V" continue to bounce around, while the TV you own may already have integrated Skype, Facebook and Twitter functionality and a host of catch-up TV options.

The one constant amid all this expected change is the need for connectivity. But how can your connection handle all this? After all, a 4K Smart TV just quadrupled the size of the movies you'd need to stream to take advantage of it. Your Xbox 360 is about to take another spin. And if Apple's history is anything to go by, expect a game-changing home device that will push the limits of your connection.

First, consider the bandwidth required to get the fully-connected home up and running.

Some recent forecasts predict that by 2017, more than a quarter of all Australians will have signed up to an online TV service - which includes services such as Foxtel on Xbox 360. If you consider Foxtel estimates watching an hour of high-quality Foxtel through the Xbox consumes around 800MB (roughly the same for any high-quality IPTV streaming), and that Australia's current population is around 23 million, that's 5.75 million people downloading a potential 4.6 billion MB every hour, or roughly 4.3 petabytes of data.

That's a statistic that seemed unfathomable as recently as five years ago. And that's just taking into account one hour of high-quality IPTV viewing.

That statistic doesn't even account any HD streaming and the potential move from those OTT services to cater to the 4K TV generation and beyond, or for the predicted move by gaming consoles to DLC. And that's just to connect the immediate space around your television.

This doesn't account for the cloud-based Chromebook you may have in front of you while you Skype away and download a movie to watch later from iTunes, or the iPad streaming Pandora in the kitchen while someone cooks. There's also a child gaming in the corner, playing Mario Kart with people from all over the world.

Are the telcos ready for all of this?

The smart ones are, building dynamic capacity into their networks to ensure they stay ahead of the curve to keep its customers online when and where they need to be.

The idea of dynamic capacity essentially means to increase or decrease the amount of bandwidth required to cater for spikes in demand. For instance, if everyone is watching Game of Thrones via Foxtel on Xbox 360 at the one time, telcos are able to anticipate this and charge the providers accordingly while ramping down in other areas experiencing troughs in demand.

This allows the telco to predictively cater to demand and allocate the bandwidth when and where it is needed most.

In another example, this means that a telco could ramp up resources for prime-time IPTV viewing in Sydney, around 7pm, and ramp down in Perth at the same time - Perth being three hours behind Sydney at 4pm.

This is different to on-peak/off-peak download limits that currently exist for many telcos, which offer incentives to use the internet when everyone else doesn't but can't ramp up resources during peak times.

Demand for bandwidth is always increasing, and I can guarantee the bandwidth needed for the next-generation lounge room is something that many of us will take for granted. If your cloud-based game takes 10 seconds to buffer, the frustration will be palpable - even though 10 or 15 years ago many of us were using dial-up modems to download a song an hour, games still came by the cartridge, and you actually had to insert this thing called a "DVD" into this other thing called a "DVD Player" to watch a new release movie.

We'll take it for granted because the networks of the smartest telcos are predicting these spikes and are building intelligence into their networks to cater to that demand.

Anthony McLachlan is VP Asia-Pacific, Ciena

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